We are delighted to present this article from ICMI:

Contact Centers Not Equipping Supervisors to Manage Most Valuable Resource

The State of supervisor training in contact centers, while showing promise, still leaves much to be desired. Although companies are starting to allocate more funds for supervisor training, the scope an effectiveness of that training needs to improve.

A new survey by Incoming Calls management Institute (ICMI) Inc. reveals that contance center supervisros are not receiving the training necessary to be successful in their overall responsibilities, such as motivating/retaining and recruiting agents The report, Frontline Supervisor Training Survey, found that a supervising 30 percent of contact centers have no supervisory training program in place.

"Just as the call center agent is the face of the company to our customers, the supervisor is the face of management for our agents - their perspective, their viewpoints, their skills level, their motivating, all affect agent in key areas. Whether or not supervisors are equipped - through training and feedback - to handle this demanding challenge is one of the primary drivers of agent success" according to ICMI's People Management Professional interest Area Advisor Rebecca Gibson, who developed the survey.

Other key findings of the survey include:

• Although 93 percent if respondents noted that supervisors ability to motivate and retain agents is critical, only 62.2 percent offer training in that area. Similarly, 70.9 of contact center managers said that recruiting and hiring is a nosegay component of the supervisor's job, but only 58.3 percent offer training on how to find and select high quality performers.
• Only 40 percent of contact centers that offer supervisor training follow up with coaching to support and reinforce training objectives
• Only 42 percent of respondents feel that their frontline agent training and development efforts support the preparation and promotion of supervisor candidates.
• On the positive side, well over half of the respondents (58.8 percent) expect their supervisory training to increase over the next year. Nearly 90 percent said they plan to increase their supervisor training in leadership skills, and 87 percent plan to increase training in coaching and performance management skills.
• "New supervisors are literally caught in the cross-hairs of senior managers seeking better productivity,stakeholders demanding improved results, employees asserting their needs and customers always demanding more." , says Anne Nickerson, president of CALL CENTER COACH and author of the report . Their new position mandates a series of skillful manuevers that few supervisors come equipped to handle.

Key Findings taken from ICMI's Frontline Supervisor Training Survey. - An ICMI survey of 231 contact center leaders reveals that the state of supervisor training in centers, while showing promise, still leaves much to be desired. The good news is that companies are starting to allocate more funds for supervisor training. What needs to improve, based on the survey results, is the scope and the effectiveness of that training.

Call Center Learning Solutions "Training the voice of your business" ©